Married to an aggressive partner

QUESTION:

Please pray. I live with someone with an aggressive personality disorder and lately he's been out of control. We're due to get married in May next year.

M

Dear M:

I will pray for you. But, based on the brief information you give me, and my experience dealing with domestic violence issues, I should also extend some caution to you. 

Technically, in the world of psychology, and the DSM-IV, there is not an “aggressive personality disorder.” That may be good news, because personality disorders are extremely hard to treat – if they can be successfully treated at all.

However, the behavior you describe, and the fear you express by just writing to me asking for prayer, indicates a calamity in the making.

You say that your partner is “aggressive,” and “out of control.” To me, that means violence, trouble, mental and physical injury – and in many cases, death. In a word, it is a classic domestic violence situation, and that is what I assume your situation to be. Some statistics say that about 4000 women a year are murdered in America in domestic violence situations. It is serious.

One of the big mistakes young people make is to think they can change the other person once they are married. Rarely does that happen.  In the case of wife beaters, they tend to get even worse. And remember, no wife deserves to be beaten.